A/N: It took me some time to think about how exactly I wanted to end this, so I hope that this gives you all some closure! As I said before, I kind of left this in a spot where I could explore the plot further if I really wanted to at a future date. However, as for right now I'll probably be quite dormant when it comes to putting new stuff up, though I'll still be reading as much as possible :D. I just wanted to thank everyone so much for reading this and for all of the feedback I've gotten!

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When he was sixteen, Jem's heart stopped beating during a football game. It was one of the last home games of the season, and the entire family had gone to see him play. He was running, and all of a sudden he just fell. It wasn't until they took him away in a stretcher that anyone had realized how serious it actually was. Fortunately for him, they were able to revive him with some sort of electric paddles that made Louise shudder. She didn't actually see them revive Jem, but Atticus did and had admitted to his sister-in-law that he thought that Jem was surely dead after that ordeal.

But he wasn't. A miracle had definitely occurred that evening. Even though Jem's heart had stopped for almost two minutes, they were able to save him, and he would be able to return to his normal life. As a result of his scare, he was confined to the hospital for nearly two weeks afterwards for them to run tests. The same tests that Harriet was urging Louise to take each time they spoke to one another.

However, Louise still refused. It didn't matter that her father and two older sisters died from heart disease, or that Harriet (and now Jem) would probably have to take medication for the rest of their lives, Louise was still adamant in letting things happen the way they were supposed to. As she had always said, if she was meant to die of a heart attack, then that is how she would go. Though, it didn't seem like that was going to happen. She didn't have chest pains, shortness of breath, or any of the symptoms that Hattie had been complaining of. Her heart didn't seem to beat irregularly, and as far as she knew, she was fine (though whenever she said this to Jack he would scoff and call her an idiot since she wasn't a doctor).

For most of her adulthood, Louise had believed that Edie was meant to outlive everyone. But once they nearly lost Jem, Louise realized that maybe it was her that was going to outlive her family. Once Edie died Louise had done very well at moving on with her life, but sometimes a dark day would rear its ugly head and her mind would be full of thoughts of her being alone. At one time in her life, she thought that maybe she'd enjoy being alone, that it was what was meant for her. However, once she moved to Maycomb she realized she never wanted to be alone again.

After his brush with death, Jem became more reclusive. Unable to play football for the rest of the year, Jem instead camped himself in his room once school was over and wouldn't leave unless it was time for supper. Given how vivacious Jem had always been, this caused his family to worry—especially Jean Louise.

Jean Louise stopped going by the name Scout the moment she entered the sixth grade. She declared that her childhood nickname was too juvenile and she wanted to be taken more seriously by the girls in her class. Alexandra had been right all along—Jean Louise was growing interest in how she looked and making friends with girls her age. She no longer put up a fight when it came time for her to wear dresses, though she still embraced some of her tomboy tendencies. At first, Louise couldn't help but to think she had suffered another loss, she personally did not think this day would come so soon. However, Louise was grateful for one thing: Jean Louise never stopped asking about her mother. Whenever she was alone with her niece, Jean Louise would continue to ask a plethora of questions about Jean. The two of them would spend hours talking about Jean, and while it used to make Louise sad to think of her deceased sister, she now felt more at peace.

Despite the fact that Jean Louise was growing up, she still held her brother at an extremely high regard. She asked him for advice on every possible thing, whether it be how to dress, how to act, or how to not look annoying to the boys in her grade. Louise was nervous for she thought that one day Jem was going to snap at his sister and attempt to wring her neck or something. But he didn't. With age, Jem had seemed to develop more patience for his younger sister and was always more than willing to assist her with any questions or worries she might have. Louise was proud—he reminded her more and more of Jean with each passing day.

Almost losing Jem seemed to change Jean Louise, too. She became needier, but only towards Jem (as soon as he came home from the hospital it was almost as if her other family members no longer existed). She would pine around his room, and sometimes he would let her in and the two of them would spend hours talking in hushed voices. Louise could tell it worried Atticus immensely, though he said nothing of it.

Since moving to Maycomb permanently with Jack in 1937, Louise lived a settled and peaceful life. She couldn't help but to think that if Edie was still alive she would shake her head and say: "see, Louise? I told you that you'd be far happier once you just settled." For once, Louise wished her mother was around just so she could admit that Edie was right for the first (and last) time. She enjoyed the fact that she had friendly companionship and had the ability to do whatever she wanted, though the people in town were full of speculations. Despite the fact that her and Jack slept in separate rooms and had no romantic inklings towards one another at all, they were constantly being told they were living in sin. Whenever she was in town or having lunch with the ladies, Louise heard a plethora of different rumors about her and Jack (her favorite one was that they were hiding an illegitimate child in their basement). When they ate their supper together (with Rose Aylmer at the table of course), Louise and Jack would simply laugh at these rumors together. While normal people would've been offended, the pair did their best fuel the fire, knowing that they were tormenting everyone around them (especially Alexandra).

In her youth, Louise feared routine and normalcy. Now she thrived on it. She no longer cared that her days were almost identical to one another. She far preferred the companionship she had in Maycomb over the adventures she thought she was having in the past. She found it funny how her life had changed so drastically, but she couldn't complain about her circumstances one bit. Sometimes at night before she went to bed she would be brought to laughter over the thought of how Jean would react to her sister's present lifestyle. Louise couldn't help but to think that Jean would tease her and call her soft, but she didn't care, she could now proudly admit that she had gone soft.

One evening while Jack and Louise sat in the living room reading (the two of them had enough books to never be bored), Jean Louise stormed through the front door and planted herself on the sofa, burying her head in the cushion. The first thing that Jack and Louise had decided when they moved to Maycomb was that their door would always be open to Jem and Scout if they should ever need their aunt or uncle. Jem and Scout came nearly every day, especially in the summer, so their presence was never necessarily a surprise. Jack, who never knew how to approach Jean Louise once the girl had gotten her period, stood up and left his book on the chair. "I'm gonna walk Rose," he told Louise, winking. Louise scowled at him in response, put her own book down and joined her niece on the sofa.

"Well, aren't you just a beacon of light today?" Louise teased as Jean Louise groaned. "What is up with you?"

Slowly, her niece sat up. Her face was red and it seemed as though a permanent glare was etched on her face. "Atticus and Aunty want me to get the same tests that Jem got done for his heart." She said bitterly.

That past week after church, Atticus had off-handedly mentioned to Louise and Jack that he was going to set up an appointment for Scout for her to get her heart checked out. He figured that since Jem was starting to have problems so young, it was best that Scout get checked out now so that she wasn't in the same position as her brother. Jack and Louise had both adamantly agreed with Atticus, which then prompted Jack to call Louise a hypocrite for not getting herself tested (she responded by kicking him in the shin as hard as she could).

"Well, I reckon that isn't too bad." Louise said, and Scout furrowed her brow.

"You say you won't go to the doctors," her niece retorted, making Louise scowl.

"That's different." Louise said quickly.

"No it ain't."

"I'm not going to argue with you about it," Louise said firmly. "What is so wrong with you getting tested? You saw how sick Jem got—do you want to get like that?"

"Well no," Jean Louise replied, shuffling around in her seat. "But…"

"But what?"

Jean Louise now looked embarrassed. Her cheeks flushed and grew redder as she looked down at her feet. "Well, Jem said…" Jean Louise started before changing her mind. "Never mind."

"Jem said what, honey?"

Jean Louise sighed as she looked back up at her aunt, this time looking sad. "Jem said when he thought he was dyin' he saw mama."

Louise's breath got caught in her throat as she looked at Jean Louise with a perplexed expression on her face. "What?" She asked, making Jean Louise sigh.

"It's stupid," her niece mumbled, looking away.

"It's not, elaborate please." Louise said quickly as Jean Louise slouched herself deep into the couch cushion.

"Jem told me that when his heart stopped during that football game that he saw mama and she told him that he could stay with her or go back to me and Atticus, and then he came back." Scout said quickly. Maybe that had been the reason why Jem had decided to seclude himself from the rest of his family.

"What does that have to do with you getting tested, sweet?" Louise asked slowly.

"Well," Scout said, and Louise could tell that her niece was embarrassed by what she was about to say. "I just hadn't seen mama in so long…I just thought that maybe I could see her, but come back like Jem did."

Louise looked at Jean Louise sadly. "Come here," she said, pulling her niece into a stiff hug. "Honey, I don't advise you do that."

"Why not?"

"Sweet, you'd get very sick."

"So?"

"I honestly don't think your mama would want you to risk your life, when you have so much ahead of you, just to see her for two minutes." Louise admitted. "I think she'd rather see you when you're supposed to—"

"You always say if you're supposed'ta have a heart attack, you'll—"

"Honey, I'm nearly forty. You're twelve, you haven't even done everything you're supposed to do yet." Louise said firmly.

"I've done plenty."

Louise scowled at Jean Louise. "Honey, you've barely done anything. Your mama would want you to graduate high school, to go to college or somethin', to get married—"

Jean Louise scoffed. "I ain't never getting married." She declared, and Louise's immediate reaction was the grin.

"Fine, you're supposed to become a spinster or somethin' crazy." Louise said, still smiling. "But it'd be awfully foolish if you let yourself get sick like Jem did. Hell, I bet if Jem had a choice, he'd rather get tested than nearly die playin' football."

Scout leaned her head back on the cushion. "I reckon you're right." She mumbled, the look of discontent off of her face.

"I know I'm right," Louise winked. "So are you gonna listen to your daddy, or is Jack going to have to knock you out so we can take you to the doctors."

Jean Louise laughed. "I ain't lettin' him come near me with anything," she declared, making Louise chuckled. "I reckon I'll go."

"I'm sure that'll make your daddy feel awfully relieved," Louise told her niece. "I think he's been mighty worried about you and Jem."

"Will you come?" Jean Louise asked.

"Of course, I'll sit there with you—"

"I mean will you get tested with me?" She amended as Louise forced herself not to scowl at her niece.

She pretended to look like she was thinking for a few moments, though she already knew what her answer was going to be. "No, sweet." She said. "I'm not gonna do it."

A smirk grew on Jean Louise's face as she crossed her arms. "Mama wouldn't want you to go before you had to." She said firmly. Damn it, Louise thought to herself, before smirking back at Jean Louise.

"Hell," she said, rolling her eyes. "I never listened much to her, anyway."

End.